NEW YORK, March 17, 2026, 11:47 EDT
NIO Inc.’s U.S. shares edged down 0.7% to $5.99 late Tuesday morning, giving back a portion of Monday’s 2.9% gain that had pushed the stock to $6.03 and marked a three-day streak. Over in Hong Kong, shares wrapped up 0.6% higher earlier.
The pause is significant: last week’s results have shifted the conversation about the Chinese EV maker. NIO turned in its first-ever quarterly profit, but shares are still hanging around 25% beneath their 52-week peak.
Fourth-quarter net profit landed at RMB282.7 million ($40.4 million), according to a Hong Kong exchange filing, turning around from a RMB7.11 billion loss in the same quarter last year. Revenue surged 75.9% to RMB34.65 billion. Adjusted operating profit, stripping out share-based compensation and organizational optimization, came in at RMB1.25 billion.
Founder and CEO William Bin Li reported a 71.7% year-over-year surge in fourth-quarter deliveries, reaching 124,807 vehicles—a record for NIO, ONVO, and FIREFLY combined. For the first quarter, Li projected deliveries in the 80,000 to 83,000 range, which points to about 32,000 to 35,000 vehicles in March, following 47,979 units shipped in January and February.
Chief Financial Officer Stanley Yu Qu put the quarter’s vehicle margin at 18.1%, highlighting the adjusted operating profit as a “major milestone.” Morgan Stanley’s Tim Hsiao called the drop in fourth-quarter operating expenses a “pleasant surprise.” HSBC’s Yuqian Ding, after upgrading NIO to Buy and taking the target price up to $6.80 from $4.80, said the bank now had “better visibility and stronger conviction” about 2026 volume growth.
It wasn’t just NIO feeling the pressure Tuesday. XPeng slipped roughly 2.6%, while Li Auto ended down around 1.2% during New York hours—putting NIO’s decline at less than either rival’s drop.
NIO isn’t slowing down its push to grow. William Bin Li said the company plans to keep pouring resources into 12 full-stack core technologies, as well as new vehicle models and its battery-swapping and charging network—where drivers swap out drained batteries for fresh ones.
The setup isn’t straightforward. Reuters has NIO targeting thousands of overseas car sales this year, but CEO William Li flagged a memory-chip shortage that could tack on an extra 6,000 to 10,000 yuan per vehicle—and at worst, halt production altogether. On top of that, NIO noted Europe’s environment is turning hostile as EV incentives run out and electricity prices climb. Chinese automakers, for their part, remain in talks with Brussels, seeking tariff waivers after the EU’s 2024 move to slap duties on China-made EVs.
That puts March deliveries front and center. NIO has to move about 32,000 to 35,000 vehicles this month if it wants to meet its first-quarter target—a steep jump from February’s 20,797.
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